Page:Left-Wing Communism.djvu/86

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84

to defeat Lloyd George and Churchill; or, to be more explicit, we must compel the former to defeat the latter, for the former are afraid of their victory! Secondly, we must help the majority of the working class to convince themselves, through their own experience, that we are right; that is, they must convince themselves of the utter worthlessness of the Hendersons and Snowdens, of their petit-bourgeois and treacherous natures, of the inevitability of their bankruptcy. Thirdly, we must accelerate the moment when, through the disappointment of the majority of the workers with the Hendersons, it will be possible, with serious chances of success, to overthrow the Henderson government—which will most certainly lose its head if the clever leader of, not the petit, but grand bourgeoisie, Lloyd George himself, loses his wits so completely and more weakens himself—and with himself the whole bourgeois party—yesterday through his "collisions" with Churchill, today with his "collisions" with Asquith.

Let me speak more concretely. The British Communists must, in my opinion, unite all their four parties and groups (all of them very weak, some very, very weak into one single Communist Party, on the platform of the principles of the Third International, with obligatory participation in Parliament. The Communist Party must offer to the Hendersons and Snowdens a compromise, an electoral understanding:—"Let us go together against the union of Lloyd George and Churchill; let us divide the seats in Parliament according to the number of votes cast by the workers for the Labor Party or the Communists (not in the elections but by a special poll), we to retain the fullest freedom of agitation, propaganda, and political activity." Without the latter condition there can, of course, be no bloc, for this would be treason; the British Communists must and will stand up for and maintain the fullest liberty in exposing the Hendersons and Snowdens, as did the Russian Bolsheviks for fifteen years (1903–1917) in relation to the Russian Hendersons and Snowdens, that is, the Mensheviks.

If the Hendersons and Snowdens accept the bloc on these conditions, then we are the gainers, for it is altogether immaterial how many seats in Parliament we get. On this point